Chain Pumps.

Bruce Herald, Volume VII, Issue 650, 17 November 1874, Page 5

Chain Pumps.

Communicated

You had occasion to allude in your local columns a short time since to G. W. Murray's patent inclosed chain pump, which you described as a most effectual and powerful water lifter for all required purposes. I would now draw the attention of the mining public more particularly to this means of raising water for mining purposes. Moreover, it is adapted for the removal of sludge and the pumping out of claims. When 1 take into consideration the many long and often fruitless endeavors to obtain water for mining purposes, I cannot but hail with pleasure the advent of this simple and useful article. To add to this British invention, I have another in that of M'Comas's prize water lifter (Melbourne patent), to which you have also referred in your local columns. As this is a very similar invention, and prior to that of Mr Murray, I must leave the public to decide on their relative merits, merely suggesting the idea that M'Comas's pump would be better adapted for mining purposes, on account of its '■ foot wheel guide," than the other, which has none, and would not act well in a current. I find in all other respects that the pumps arc the same.

To show what may be done with this new power, I will take an example on the Molyneux. Water is required to work ground at Roxburgh, on the east side of the river. A large amount of waste water comes down the Teviot, which is not taken up by the various water companies. I will put a M'Comas or Murray pump into a pool at the mouth of the Teviot Gorge, and work it by means of wind or horse-power. I can raise then, with one horse, and send it down to the claim, by means of sheet iron water pipe, 478 gallons per minute. This requires a 7-inch cylinder, and raises the water 13ft. perpendicular. Say the height to the top of the bank, is 52ft., or four times the height of the first example, then take a 7£ inch cylinder and two horses, and the result will be the delivery of 250 gallons of water per minute, through the hose. It is manifest that the adoption of this invention would aid hundreds of miners to obtain a comfortable living, wha are now obliged to seek a livelihood by other means, during six months in the year, and thus relieve them of the false position they often occupy, solely on this account. Because of the suitability of the pumps for lifting in running water, miners living along the banks of the Molyneux, could use them, and farmers who suffer fi-om the drought in summer, such as those living on Speargrass Flat, on the Shotover River, could provide themselves with a plentiful supply therefrom. The fine inland tracts of country, which, lie in a manner desolate, can by the magic power of water, be made to blossom like the rose. For instance, take the garden of Monte Christo, near Clyde, it was a few years since a waste of sand. The whole of the plain, between Alexandra and Clyde, would become as fruitful as Monte Christo, if water were obtainable. This with human industry, is the wealth of many a land.

I would rejoice to see these wildernesses of the interior becoming fruitful and productive, and those hardy miners who have bo long combated against the disadvantages of our crude resources, winning the reward of their hopeful patience and untiring energy, by settling down to cultivation and mining combined and no false picture may be drawn when we illustrate the home of the Otago miner surrounded with fruits and flowers. If railways are a means of developing this country, so also is the plentiful supply of water. This means of raising water. This means of raising water has been most successful in NewSouth Wales and Victoria, where it has been apylied to the purposes of irrigation, &c. ; as well as in Great Britain. I have no hesitation in drawing the attention of our miners to it. having every confidence in its success. TWWKAWk